Chapter 4, The Passionate Journey Summary

Women had this need for a new identity a century before, which started them on their journey away from the home. In the years surrounding this book, it became popular to laugh at feminism. Women pitied the old feminists fighting for the right to an education and to vote. The older generation of feminists was accused of penis envy and of wanting to be men. However, the need to find new trails and prove women are human was real.

Those old time feminists were on a journey to prove women were human beings. They had to show that women were not decorative, but mindless animals. Women had minds and needed to grow, but women were treated as children by their husbands. She was completely dependent on men for every need and had no other role in society. Friedan states that it...